Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

North and South Illustrated Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially disgusted by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret realizes the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by his tempestuous relationship with the mill owner and self-made man, John Thornton, as his fierce opposition to his treatment of his employee's masks a deeper attraction. In the north and south, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fuses individual sentiment with social concern, and in Margaret Hale, she creates one of the most original heroines in Victorian literature.